REPORTS AND PAPERS
- Who Doesn’t Come Home: Factors Influencing Mortality Among Long-Term Care Residents Transitioning to and From Emergency Departments in Two Canadian Cities
- Producing ‘Top Tips’ for Care Home Staff During the COVID-19 Pandemic in England
From the Desk of Carol Wodak:
QUOTABLES:
We are just as vulnerable as other parts of the country when it comes to the precarious situation our nursing homes find themselves in.
Daniel Legere New Brunswick Federation of Labour
Hot of the Press
“the government has had months to recruit and train people to work in #LongTermCare care, as British Columbia has done, or issue a broad call for mass hiring as seen in Quebec.”This government has dragged its feet #seniors #staffing #onpoli https://t.co/HeReppWbyf
— Laura Tamblyn Watts (@ltamblynwatts) November 6, 2020
Who Doesn’t Come Home? Factors Influencing Mortality Among Long-Term Care Residents Transitioning to and From Emergency Departments in Two Canadian Citieshttps://t.co/LS2HczcYqW
— TREC (@TRECResearch) November 5, 2020
We welcome articles and policy commentaries for our #COVID19 Special Collection which brings together papers that document and analyse policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in #longtermcare systems all over the world https://t.co/mVLf3E9BAD @LSEPress #openaccess #socialcare pic.twitter.com/UiejeUsCqs
— Journal of Long-term Care (@JournalofLTC) November 6, 2020
Canadian News:
Concern rises alongside soaring COVID cases in Alberta’s care homes
The number of cases in continuing care facilities has quadrupled in the past month
Cases of COVID-19 in Alberta’s continuing care homes have more than quadrupled in the past month, raising concerns among experts and those with loved ones in the residences.
The number of active cases in the province’s care homes now stands at 418, up from 102 a month ago, and 213 residents have died since the start of the pandemic earlier this year.
Those figures are a source of stress for people like Joyce Harris, whose husband and 98-year-old mother are both in homes.
Her mother suffers from dementia and is living at Carewest George Boyack, currently locked down due to an outbreak.
‘She doesn’t understand’
“She doesn’t understand what’s going on. You tell her about COVID and how it’s impacting people, and that’s why the regulations are in place, that’s why she can’t go out,” said Harris.
“But within five minutes, she’s forgotten that so, you know, she’s upset again, because she doesn’t understand why we’re not going to see her.”
Harris says her mother gets frustrated and has occasionally gone to the front doors and started banging on them to be let out.
There have been “many teary phone calls,” she said.
Her mother’s home is one of 41 around the province with outbreaks. Her husband’s residence is not one of them.
Health officials have asked care homes in Calgary and Edmonton to further limit visitors while transmissions rates in the broader community are high.
World News
‘I cry every day’: Virus hits French nursing homes anew
Virus pressure is mounting at French nursing homes where more than 400 people with COVID-19 have died in the past week
Virus pressure is mounting at French nursing homes, where more than 400 people with COVID-19 have died in the past week and some residents are again being confined to their rooms and cut off from their families.
“I cry every day,” said Patricia Deliry, 81, whose daughter usually provides daily assistance at her Paris care home but has been kept away for the past two weeks as part of the home’s virus protection efforts. Deliry hasn’t been able to see fellow residents either. “We’re confined, closed in from morning to night.”
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said Friday that the government is sending 1.6 million rapid virus tests to care homes across the country to allow them to test personnel. It’s part of efforts to avoid mass new confinement of nursing home residents after the anguish caused during a nationwide lockdown in the spring. Germany launched a similar antigen test effort at nursing homes this week.
“The goal is to learn lessons from the first wave,” said the government minister for elderly care issues, Brigitte Bourgignon, while visiting a nursing home south of Paris on Friday. “What we want is to stay on this balancing line — which is difficult — between the protection that we owe our elders but also the fact that we should respect their rights and therefore not isolate them totally.”
CAREWATCH BACKGROUND
CAREWATCH is Inspired by Carol Wodak founding member of CITIZEN WATCH
BACKGROUNDER: CITIZEN WATCH was created as a public service for the people of Alberta. It was the work of an ever-widening network of individuals from across the province, including families and friends of long term care and assisted or supportive living residents and those requiring long term care supports in their own homes. CITIZEN WATCH WEBSITE
RECENT PRINTABLES
INDEX (CLICK on Carol’s contributed collated collections by date)
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
- Who Doesn’t Come Home: Factors Influencing Mortality Among Long-Term Care Residents Transitioning to and From Emergency Departments in Two Canadian Cities
- Nursing Home Basic Care Guarantee RNAO Submission to the Long-Term Care Staffing Study Advisory Group
- 18 May 2020 Old money Tortoise Thousands of care home residents are dying from Covid-19, and staff are on minimum wage. But in the background, big profits are being made. Ian Birrell investigates a broken industry
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